


Safe Addiction

by J_Bell



Category: Sonny with a Chance
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Depression, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, No Strings Attached, Smut, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 13:54:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6426502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Bell/pseuds/J_Bell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not getting emotionally involved was the interesting bonus of their healthy vice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Addiction

**Author's Note:**

> Epigraph from the Jonas Brothers' "Poison Ivy", for which I'm terribly sorry. Sorry for this fic, in general. Dark times, I suppose.

_I breakout and I start to shake_

_when I hear your name_

_can’t walk away_

_I can’t stop it even if I try_

_I lay down my pride_

_can’t walk away_

 

 

 

Knock, knock. Why is she knocking? She has the keys. Knock again. She wants in, she wants to get away from herself and she wants nothing at all; this is why she is here, knocking on his door.

 

Three years since Tawni’s twenty-first birthday, and that dreadful trip to Vegas – a first taste of all that was illegal and delicious – three years since Tawni quit _So Random!_ in shame for having woken up in her bra and make-up (and nothing else) in James Conroy’s arms, and no memory of how she had ended up there. About that same time Nico got involved in some “serious acting”, as in dramatic-movie-about-a- _bon-vivant_ serious acting, and was fired after demanding an exorbitant raise. Zora quit because the studio had problems with her having girlfriends; Grady was fired simply because he was no longer funny. Three years ago.

 

The doorknob clicks, the small opening revealing half-lidded blue orbs, drowsy with sleep and mildly confused. He mumbles something about it being past two in the morning on a Wednesday (or Thursday), but lets her in without arguing, not turning on the lights, walking back to his bedroom mechanically. Two years since this scene started repeating itself almost every night. Two, all that? She doesn’t know how she has lasted this long.

 

New people were hired – the show _had_ to go on – and there was absolutely no chemistry between the nice, excitingly funny newbies and herself. She retreated backstage, became a professional sketch writer, and a pretty good one at that. Her mother remarried, moved back to Wisconsin and she got herself a fancy apartment and Poodle. Company enough, her stupid puppy and Tawni occasionally dropping in to discuss her relationship – marvel at that! – with James.

 

Right?

 

“This is awful bad timing, even for you,” Chad says laying on his back, relaxed and wide awake by now, his eyes travelling her diminute frame.

 

“Your latest leading lady’s not here,” Sonny shrugs with an almost-smile. “How then is this bad timing?”

 

“Unlike you,” he gestures to her, a hand grabbing her by the waist to pull her closer. “I’m not a caffeine addict; I _sleep_ , I need to at times, usually at night.”

 

“Usually when I’m not here,” she sits by him, her uneasiness fading and being replaced by comfort and, judging by the way his hand caresses the small of her back, soon sheer ecstasy.

 

While _So Random!_ fell painfully apart, their rival prospered like no other show in the studio, like no other show on television. The script writers had the discernment to mature the story and characters along with their audience and actors; their viewership was astronomical, back-to-back and overseas. Two years ago a theatrical version was shot, and Chad Dylan Cooper scored, in widescreen, his first Academy Award, plus some other golden statues in other nominations. Emmys too, and many, as well as Golden Globes. When Zac Efron, presenting that year’s Teen Choice Awards, pronounced the winner of the Best Actor award to also be “ _the greatest actor of our generation_ ”, Chad mobilised all of Hollywood for his TCA after-party.

 

Sonny went – then again, who didn’t? – and danced with her friends, with Zac Efron while his eternal girlfriend made out with her HSM BFF, with Shane Gray when he was so wasted he couldn’t tell her from his band mates, between Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick during the Losers’ Dance. Some loganberry smoothies and crust-less sammiches – no drugs or alcohol. She had the time of her life, hadn’t she? It was the most fun she had had since everything had started falling apart. She stayed until the very end of the party, her feet ached so much she didn’t know how her heels would come off; she was only twenty years old and completely alone by the time the music stopped playing.

 

“ _Usually_ ,” he agrees pulling her down with him. Sonny lies comfortably on his chest and kisses his neck, sucking at his quickened pulse, just the way she knows drives him crazy. She is in no mood for any foreplay tonight; she just needs a long, hard fix of Chad in order to drive away her insomnia and make her feel like there’s more to the world than coffee, lousy scripts, her schizophrenic dog and a bunch of pseudo-friends who never really gave a damn.

 

It had been so that night, too – those first few hours of morning – after the end of Chad’s party. She had been feeling like a coward for not having gotten incredibly – or minimally – high, unlike every other celebrity that staggered or was carried out of the immense night club. Had she been inebriated she’d have the alcohol to blame for everything that followed; instead, and much as Chad contradicted her the next morning, her initiation in this life of casual sex with Chad Dylan Cooper was her fault entirely.

 

She undoes his pyjama shirt buttons and he pulls her shaggy dress over her head, with ease as if they had it rehearsed. It takes them not a full minute to undress each other swiftly and without inhibitions. Once both are stripped, Chad rolls her over, pinning her down on the bed with a smirk she doesn’t like. She’s not here for fun, certainly not for his enjoyment. His clever fingers run up and down her body, teasing everywhere but where she needs him, and she senses the bribe before he even parts his lips.

 

“Kiss me,” he whispers, his ocean blue eyes shining with a hint of sadness. Sonny shakes her head and his smirk slips. “We’re not doing this tonight if you don’t kiss me.”

 

“Really, Chad?” She pecks him on the lips as if they taste bitter, spreads her legs and wraps them about this waist, not missing his sharp intake of breath. “ _Really?_ ”

 

She lifts and lowers her hips, rubbing her damp sex on his. It’s more than any remotely normal man can stand. He closes his eyes, shuddering.

 

“You’ll be taking care of Chadson Dylan Cooper Jr. or Caroline Demetria Cooper in nine months,” he huskily says through gritted teeth, “if you don’t kiss me. No condom, and I’ll personally flush your birth control pills down the toilet.”

 

She glares at him, all movement ceasing. “Is that you persuading me to kiss you? Threatening me with miniature versions of yourself?” He flinches. “I’ve been off the pill for months, and it’s not like we’ve been using protection, Cooper. It hasn’t happened so far, it won’t now.”

 

He buries his face between her breasts with a groan. _It_ won’t; he dares call that a blow. What is she even doing here, he asks himself, why did she knock on the door, why is he going to give in to her again?

 

The end of his TCA after-party two years ago, the night he gave in to her for the first time. He hadn’t been able to walk in a straight line when the music died, but he consoles himself in thinking he was still fairly lucid, albeit not quite master of his actions. He had been feeling like hell when the last of his guests bade him goodbye. Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, TCAs, admittedly winning over Zac Efron; a party spent in the arms of every willing girl on the dance floor, a white pill or another, loganberry martinis, sammiches. Chastity Ann DeWitt and Marta Balatico had a catfight over who would take their Mackenzie home, and ended up leaving together; Portlyn and Skyler had disappeared not an hour before; Ferguson had been with Brenda all night. Every whore in town would have answered his booty call, he remembers having reasoned, but then, what would have been the point, really? He should have stopped drinking when he had been stupidly happy; no need to have gone all the way into depressed-drunk. There went all the pretty couples: Zanessa, Taylena, Shmitchie, Niley… and he remained just Chad.

 

He kisses her sternum, right above her beating heart; not an apology, not that she expects any. He kisses his way up her chest, around and ascending on her neck, on her jaw even as she shakes her head no. He locks their gazes, hers scared and his defeated, as he finally gives her what she has come for, hard and slow and delicious and heart-wrenching. He feels so good inside of her and she sighs delighted, elated as he moves, as she undulates under him. She feels like she’s flying, like she’s being ripped apart and in the place of this self she has come to hate there is only Chad, there is only beauty and there is _so much pleasure_ she wants to die.

 

She had certainly been contemplating knives when he found her that night – those first few hours of morning. She had been sitting on a couch in the corner, quite alone, quite beautiful and a positive mess. He came with some jerkthrob comment on her appearance – or was it about her numerous dance partners? – she smiled sadly at him and offered to drive him home, given his sorry state. He agreed and, in his mind and thinking in retrospect, it was only natural he’d jump on her once they reached his penthouse. They were a thing, daily flirting and all that, they were both feeling awfully lonely and that fame had brought them everything but what they wanted. Justify as you will the fact they had sex that night; nothing justified anything once Chad saw the bloodstains on his sheets the following morning.

 

“ _Chad…_ ” Sonny moans in ecstasy, manicured nails clawing at his back mercilessly. He makes sure her neck has his initials written in hickeys before failing to kiss her again. Blood, he’ll never forget he made her bleed that much. She bites his lips and rolls on top of him, rising and riding him musically. The woman knows what she’s doing, and she’s so fucking _amazing_ he wants to die too, if only because in being with her he feels he _can_.

 

The blood scared the living hell out of him – sure, he had lain with virgins before, but it had neither ever mattered nor ever been this gory. He hadn’t simply, as the vulgar saying goes, plopped her cherry; it was plain by her walk he had hurt her. What scared him the most was that she was so obviously broken and still met him with a cheerful “Good morning!” It was the first time he saw through her smile.

 

He didn’t see her for a week after that, bumping into her only when he was leaving the studio on Friday night. He had the newest episode of _Mackenzie Falls_ wrapped up and she had just delivered the scripts for the next few _So Random!_ sketches – she had the appearance of someone who had spent the week on coffee and pizza, in front of the computer screen and by the phone, waiting for a phone call she knew wouldn’t come. In his turn, he had so much make-up round his eyes it darkened his face; Portlyn and Skyler were officially together, as were Ferguson and Brenda, whereas Chastity and Marta had decided to pretend their tumble the weekend prior had been his fault, so they weren’t talking to him. Chad had planned to drink a bottle of Jack Daniels all by himself that night, and he might have, had he not run into a safer addiction.

 

He can’t take it much longer, and by the way her beautiful body is glistening and struggling for breath as she rides him high and low, she isn’t that far off, either. She cries out when his hands cover her breasts and he sits up, holding their chests close, their faces closer. Defensive and intent on not stopping, she exposes her throat by throwing her head back, and Chad bites down with force enough to mark. She screams his name in a clear show of loving it.

 

“Sonny,” he breathes with difficulty, his hips trusting upwards even as he wills himself to slow down. Her eyes are glazed over, her cheeks blushing and her lips puffy and swollen, her hair a mess into which his hands tangle to keep her from looking away – his blue eyes so filled with adoration for her it breaks her heart through the overwhelming pleasure.

 

“Let me…”

 

“No.”

 

“Please.”

 

“ _No._ ”

 

“ _Sonny…_ ” he whines as he pins her down again, screwing his hips mildly and causing her to writhe and scream into his ear. He sucks her earlobe and doesn’t let go. “Let me kiss you, Sunshine…”

 

He had kissed her the first time, but just the first. The second time began with an awkward dialogue neither recalls well, proceeded to an indecent proposal in the form of an offer of a ride home and she let him kiss her just once, and her words upon the matter he shall never forget.

_“It’s not like I love you or anything, Chad, so, please, let’s not make this personal.”_

They didn’t. The scheme was satisfactory enough, another section was scheduled – if one could call it that – and everything seemed to work out perfectly. He’d go to her every time the world stopped feeling real and she’d go to him every time she felt the world crushing her. Not getting emotionally involved was the interesting bonus of their healthy vice, seeing as they were both weary of any type of relationship. Frenemies with benefits was good for them: Sonny could handle her breakdowns better, Chad improved his acting and, when things got rough, they ran to each other’s beds. Good, good; fine, fine.

 

Right?

 

She is too far gone, moaning incoherences, his name and what sounds suspiciously like cursing; she’s holding back in order to enjoy this as much as possible, she’s holding on in order not to let go of him and of something else she feels she is about to lose. She can feel her eyes water as his do, perhaps she has never been more scared in her entire life. Not good, not fine, all _wrong_ : she had never been as lonely as when she quit her show, she kept coming back for Chad because (and Stephanie Meyer’s definition sucks and is incredibly right) she has a void in her only he can make whole. Sonny loves him with all her being and the immensity of it scares her to death.

 

He won’t stop now even if it kills him, and, if she shakes her head no, it may just. He _wants_ this to be personal, he can stand no longer not having anything real in his life, and his love for her is the only thing he feels he truly has. She has to let him love her like he wants to, like he has wanted all along and was ever so afraid of trying. Chad needs Sonny to need him like he needs her: the flesh and the soul.

 

She meets him trust for trust, twist for twist, holding on in a mess of sweat, saliva, moans and slick sound of their bodies slamming and rubbing against each other. They are so close it hurts, it makes her toes curl and tenses his shoulders, it is either right now or not ever. Sonny plunges her fingers into his hair and pulls him to her, surrendering herself completely to his mercy, being engulfed by her own overdriven senses as she clenches round him, a scream in her chest that dies on his lips as they taste hers, finally.

 

The kiss lasts longer than the flooding wave of pleasure, much longer, and they feel they won’t ever breathe again. Their eyes are closed and everything is quiet, whole for the first time in so very, very long. The kiss lasts until they feel all their energy drained from their bodies and the after-effect of their massive orgasms has left them numb and physically useless. He breathes in deeply before rolling off her and she settles herself comfortably, safely in his embrace. His hand still shakes a bit as he brushes her sweaty bangs off her eyes and, much as droplets still fall, he reckons he has never seen anything more beautiful.

 

Sonny kisses his chest tentatively. It’s too much, all of this, the twinkle in his shiny azure eyes that spell those three words, three syllables, eight letters. It frightens her to the core that she wants them said, that she wants to say them. They linger in the air like embodied music as Chad pulls the sheets over her and himself, lets her make a pillow of his shoulder and places protective arms around her. She doesn’t know how she has ever slept in any other position.

 

She is awaken next morning by him toying with a lock of her hair, an innocent curve on the corner of his lips and his blue eyes so clear she wants to kiss their lids.

 

 “What are you doing today?”

 

“Wasting away in front of a blank page, the usual.”

 

“Can’t you give the Randoms a hundred sketches instead of a hundred and one, just this week?”

 

Her lips curve minimally, too. “Possibly. Don’t _you_ have to work?”

 

“Possibly, but I can ditch, you know, throw a celebrity tantrum and not go. They’ll understand.”

 

“They’ll understand when you say you have an imperative need to not leave my bed and therefore can’t go to the studio?”

 

Chad chuckles and fondles her pretty hair. Only Sonny can sound so stupidly cute when talking dirty. “For the record, _my_ bed, and we’re not staying in.”

 

“No?”

 

“If you want to, fine, but we could go somewhere, like a restaurant, the movies…”

 

Her eyes widen and her hand flies to his cheek, holding his face so he’d look straight into her eyes. “Chad Dylan Cooper, are you asking me out?”

 

He smiles charmingly. “About time I did, don’t you think?”

 

Something inside her gives a somersault, spreads over her features in the form of a grin and bubbles in her throat to laughter, light irradiating from her as her namesake.

 

“Yes, about time.”


End file.
